Existing surgical cutting instruments frequently encounter significant drag as they are advanced through tissue. Use of these surgical cutting instruments often results in significant tissue damage, imprecise incisions, long healing times, and poor closure of incisions. Even motorized cutting instruments fail to sufficiently address these problems. For example, ultrasonic surgical cutting instruments vibrate in multiple planes at high frequencies, making it difficult to form clean incisions and/or avoid unnecessary tissue damage. Moreover, ultrasonic surgical cutting instruments generate undesirable levels of heat.
Thus, there is a need in the pertinent art for surgical cutting instruments that easily pass through tissue to form precise incisions while avoiding significant tissue damage, long healing times, and poor incision closure.